Britain stays as part of Airbus

[Cjc]

Britain historically left the consortia due to Rolls-Royce focusing its efforts on Lockheeds Tristar engine (the rb211) insted of the airbus engine (the rb207).

So what I'd the Lockheed Tristar dosnt exist? (Maby Lockheed focused more on its supersonic airliner) then Rolls-Royce (and by extension the British government) would have no chose but to focus its efforts on the A-300.

The first issue would be that the Rolls-Royce engine was for a much bigger plane then what the a-300 ended up being, would a 300 seet a-300 (insted of 250) cause the plane to flop and if so would that destory airbus before it really started to roll?

 

[CV12Hornet]

The first issue would be that the Rolls-Royce engine was for a much bigger plane then what the a-300 ended up being, would a 300 seet a-300 (insted of 250) cause the plane to flop and if so would that destory airbus before it really started to roll?

While the L-1011 was bigger than the A300 it was also a trijet instead of a twinjet. As such, initial A300 models had more powerful engines than the L-1011, though later RB211 variants would be well-suited for the A300.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

In the short term Hawker Siddeley builds 37.5% of it instead of its "real world" share and maybe BEA/British Airways buys some instead of the Tristar.

 

[Archibald]

Wasn't the RB.207 a bridge too far ? Considering the fact that the smaller RB.211 almost sunk RR (and cost British taxpayers lots of arms, legs, testicles and ovaries too...)

 

[Cjc]

Wasn't the RB.207 a bridge too far ? Considering the fact that the smaller RB.211 almost sunk RR (and cost British taxpayers lots of arms, legs, testicles and ovaries too...)

I mean it would still probably have issues, but the rb 207 was gust a uprated rb211 so it should still in the end work even if rolls Royce still go's bankrupt (the uk would have even more insensitive to bail them out considering it has put everything onto the europian partnership)

The first issue would be that the Rolls-Royce engine was for a much bigger plane then what the a-300 ended up being, would a 300 seet a-300 (insted of 250) cause the plane to flop and if so would that destory airbus before it really started to roll?

While the L-1011 was bigger than the A300 it was also a trijet instead of a twinjet. As such, initial A300 models had more powerful engines than the L-1011, though later RB211 variants would be well-suited for the A300.

I think the original A300 design was actually bigger then the Tristar, the 300 came from the number of seats it was designed for before it was shruk, wich wouldn't be the case here ( the uk needs rolls royce to be the only engine supplier which it wouldn't be for a smaller aircraft)

In the short term Hawker Siddeley builds 37.5% of it instead of its "real world" share and maybe BEA/British Airways buys some instead of the Tristar.

I wonder how it would effect BEA/british airways if they had to buy these huge a300 instead of what they actually wanted.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

In the short term Hawker Siddeley builds 37.5% of it instead of its "real world" share and maybe BEA/British Airways buys some instead of the Tristar.

I wonder how it would effect BEA/British Airways if they had to buy these huge A300 instead of what they actually wanted.

Don't know. However, in that case the same can be said for Air France and Lufthansa.

I think it will still be scaled down from the original 300 seat aircraft (which as you wrote is why it was called the A300) to the 250 seat A300B. The difference is that the work share of the airframe will be the 37.5% for France & the UK and 25% for Germany that was originally planned.

It's unlikely that the BAC.311 will get as far as it did in the "real world" because there will be no chance of BEA ordering it. The state owned airline will be forced to buy A300Bs by its "parent company" i.e. Her Majesty's Government. Which is fair enough because it will want to maximise the return on investment and it won't look good to potential buyers if the a British state owned airline prefers to buy a private venture product instead of the state-sponsored aircraft.

According to:

• Jane's 1971-73 says 6 A300Bs were on order and 10 were on option all for Air France while Lockheed had orders for 178 Tristars.
• Jane's 1973-74 says that the A300B had 13 orders & 25 options at May 1973 which included 6+10 for Air France and 3+4 from Lufthansa. Meanwhile, Lockheed had orders & options for 199 Tristars in early 1973 including 6+12 from British Airways.

Jane's 1971-73 says that the A300B was currently being offered with the GE CF6-50A but can use any similar engine such as the RB.211-61 if it became available later. Which brings us onto the engine which was originally to have been the RB.207 with a work share of UK 75% and France & Germany with 12.5% each. However, Gardner says that in 1969 when it was scaled down to the A300B the engines were to be RB.211-28s, JT9D-15s or CF6-50s.

When I first read the Opening Post I didn't notice the bit about no Tristar. That might avoid the bankruptcy of Rolls Royce.

• Jane's 1971-72 says the Tristar first flew on 16.11.70, first deliveries were scheduled for March 1972 and 12 were to be delivered by mid-June 1972.
• Meanwhile, the A300B was due to fly in the second half of 1972 (which it did) and certification was due at the end of 1973. No delivery dates were given.
• However, Jane's 1973-74 says the first aircraft flew on 28.10.72 & the second on 05.02.73, the third was due in June 1973, the fourth in October 1973 and the fifth in January 1974. Certification was planned for February 1974 with service entry in the Spring of 1974.
• The Tristar entered service with Eastern Air Lines on 26.04.72 and the A300B entered service with Air France on 23.05.74.

With no Tristar (and no penalty payments) Rolls Royce has about 2 years longer to get the RB.211 working in time to be ready for the A300Bs first flight and service entry than it did for the Tristar.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

So what I'd the Lockheed Tristar dosnt exist? (Maby Lockheed focused more on its supersonic airliner) then Rolls-Royce (and by extension the British government) would have no chose but to focus its efforts on the A-300.

If the Tristar doesn't exist Rolls Royce will also loose the sales of 750+ RB.211 engines and the RAF will have to buy second hand DC-10s or A300Bs. Meanwhile, McDonnell Douglas will sell up to 250 extra DC-10s and General Electric 750+ CF6-50C engines.

That's definitely Lockheed's loss and MD's gain, but I don't know which engine manufacturer gets the better of the deal.

 

[Cjc]

In the short term Hawker Siddeley builds 37.5% of it instead of its "real world" share and maybe BEA/British Airways buys some instead of the Tristar.

I wonder how it would effect BEA/British Airways if they had to buy these huge A300 instead of what they actually wanted.

Don't know. However, in that case the same can be said for Air France and Lufthansa.

I think it will still be scaled down from the original 300 seat aircraft (which as you wrote is why it was called the A300) to the 250 seat A300B. The difference is that the work share of the airframe will be the 37.5% for France & the UK and 25% for Germany that was originally planned.

It's unlikely that the BAC.311 will get as far as it did in the "real world" because there will be no chance of BEA ordering it. The state owned airline will be forced to buy A300Bs by its "parent company" i.e. Her Majesty's Government. Which is fair enough because it will want to maximise the return on investment and it won't look good to potential buyers if the a British state owned airline prefers to buy a private venture product instead of the state-sponsored aircraft.

According to:

• Jane's 1971-73 says 6 A300Bs were on order and 10 were on option all for Air France while Lockheed had orders for 178 Tristars.
• Jane's 1973-74 says that the A300B had 13 orders & 25 options at May 1973 which included 6+10 for Air France and 3+4 from Lufthansa. Meanwhile, Lockheed had orders & options for 199 Tristars in early 1973 including 6+12 from British Airways.

Jane's 1971-73 says that the A300B was currently being offered with the GE CF6-50A but can use any similar engine such as the RB.211-61 if it became available later. Which brings us onto the engine which was originally to have been the RB.207 with a work share of UK 75% and France & Germany with 12.5% each. However, Gardner says that in 1969 when it was scaled down to the A300B the engines were to be RB.211-28s, JT9D-15s or CF6-50s.

When I first read the Opening Post I didn't notice the bit about no Tristar. That might avoid the bankruptcy of Rolls Royce.

• Jane's 1971-72 says the Tristar first flew on 16.11.70, first deliveries were scheduled for March 1972 and 12 were to be delivered by mid-June 1972.
• Meanwhile, the A300B was due to fly in the second half of 1972 (which it did) and certification was due at the end of 1973. No delivery dates were given.
• However, Jane's 1973-74 says the first aircraft flew on 28.10.72 & the second on 05.02.73, the third was due in June 1973, the fourth in October 1973 and the fifth in January 1974. Certification was planned for February 1974 with service entry in the Spring of 1974.
• The Tristar entered service with Eastern Air Lines on 26.04.72 and the A300B entered service with Air France on 23.05.74.

With no Tristar (and no penalty payments) Rolls Royce has about 2 years longer to get the RB.211 working in time to be ready for the A300Bs first flight and service entry than it did for the Tristar.

Interesting, I had read that the rb211 had never been considered for the a300B. who's gardener BTW I want to read about that.

The uk would still probably be very nervous about downsizing the aircraft considereding how the engines were the big part of the uk's non wing workshare. Considered the A-300B design had to be done supposedly in secret it makes me think The uk was very much against downsizing the aircraft.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Interesting, I had read that the RB.211 had never been considered for the A300B. who's gardener BTW I want to read about that.

Charles Gardner. I was quoting his history of the British Aircraft Corporation.

The UK would still probably be very nervous about downsizing the aircraft considering how the engines were the big part of the UK's non wing workshare. Considered the A-300B design had to be done supposedly in secret it makes me think The uk was very much against downsizing the aircraft.

I don't know about that. I've not re-read the relevant parts from Gardner but I think he wrote that BEA didn't want the original A300 because it thought it couldn't fill it with enough passengers (which it was wrong about with the Trident & might have been wrong this time too) which is why it preferred the BAC.311 which was a 250-seat aircraft from day one. However, as a lady once said "Well he would say that, wouldn't he?"

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

If HMG hadn't pulled out of the Airbus it might have forced British Airways to buy the A310 instead of Boeing 757 to improve the balance of payments, reduce unemployment, encourage the others and to improve it's return on investment. BA might in turn be more disposed to buy A310 in the first place because there would have been some standardisation with its A300s which might have made it cheaper to run.

British Airways and Eastern Airlines were the 757s launch customers. Would Boeing have launched the aircraft without the British Airways order? Would it have at least been delayed until it found other customers? Would British Airways buying the A300 & A310 have led to airlines that bought their American equivalents buy European too?

As success breeds success... BA also bought some Boeing 737-200 Advanced in the late 1970s. Due to the success of the A300 & A310 might HMG be willing to fund the BAC.111 developments that BAC/British Aerospace was proposing? Or might we get the the A320 sooner with BA being one of its launch customers?

If the bankruptcy of Rolls Royce is avoided would it be able to re-fan the Spey sooner or develop the Spey replacements that had to be abandoned to get the RB.211 working for the Tristar?

Meanwhile, at Seattle. Would Boeing have developed a 777 sooner if it was unable to sell enough 757s to start production? It would be the "Real World" aircraft brought forward or the wide-body tri-jet that was studied in the 1970s. I think that there is a good chance that the Firm would. One of the things that makes me think so is that there is less competition, i.e. no Tristar.

 

[EwenS]

One of the limiting factors that needs to be taken into account is the ETOPS regulations. ETOPS 120 came in in 1985 and ETOPS 180 in 1988.

It was then in 1990 that Boeing began to talk to the airlines about a big twin to replace the 747, the airlines ahving previously rejected a stretched 767.

 

[alertken]

OP's premise is wrong. UK did not leave the Airbus loose consortium due to RR "focusing its efforts on Lockheeds Tristar engine (the rb211)". There is a recurring myth that RR = UK Ltd and had some form of clout on Ministers' policy. No. UK Aero Industry had/has enjoyed Ministers' disposition to accept that the source of New Civil Project risk-funding should largely be the taxpayer, but RR had/has no special clout.

Ministers chose 16/4/69 to cease funding A300B (so redefined 9/12/68 by all involved, inc. HSAL, and thus needing a variant of either JT9D in hand for 747, or of CF6/DC-10, or RB211 contracted 29/3/68 for L-1011). Ministers had no view on market prospects. They had a strong view that the Nation was in dire straits and had better things to do with taxpayers' hard-earned than to spend on another air speculation. They had devalued £ by 14.3%, 18/11/67, announced withdrawal from East of Suez (bar HK), 6/2/68. The Prague Spring had been 4/68, our SSBNs were real and so, soon, we hoped, would be an MRCA in firm collaboration. Concord was spending well, selling less. We would have chopped A300 if that had still been proposed. BOAC looked forward in fear and trepidation to the dire financial consequences of PanAm having bounced everybody into 747 - 6 on order simply to match PAA capacity on LHR-NY; BEAC was trying hard to deter HMG from imposing L-1011 (9 would be, 10/73).

We all forget the way we were in 1968. BEAC's last Dakota service was 19/5/62: 00s of seats on one very expensive hull frightened all. Short-haul was on revenue pools, long-haul on cartel fares, cartel Service standards, cartel-constrained frequency/capacity. No real competition outside US domestic. NOM #6 has Jane's forecasts of even captive Customers thinking of half-a-dozen in a Fleet.

We rejoined (now: ) Airbus Industrie 1/1/79: may I hi-jack OP to: "what if UK had not rejoined AI", and/or "what if UK had not jumped ship at all?"

The emergence of AI-as-today's-Force has nothing to do with skilful management, fine product selection/market forecasting. They became Last Man Standing next to Boeing because cushioned financing into the new Century protected them while all their competitors fell over, as Boeing, too twice nearly did (over 747 upfront loss, and over a Corporate Raid when the Pension Fund was parlous). Luck. So my view is that nothing profound would have changed if UK had stayed in, 4/69, or not rejoined, 1/79 (SA A320 et seq wings from ANOther). Because UK was one voice in several, and consensus was/is the only way.​

​

 

[Cjc]

OP's premise is wrong. UK did not leave the Airbus loose consortium due to RR "focusing its efforts on Lockheeds Tristar engine (the rb211)". There is a recurring myth that RR = UK Ltd and had some form of clout on Ministers' policy. No. UK Aero Industry had/has enjoyed Ministers' disposition to accept that the source of New Civil Project risk-funding should largely be the taxpayer, but RR had/has no special clout.

Ministers chose 16/4/69 to cease funding A300B (so redefined 9/12/68 by all involved, inc. HSAL, and thus needing a variant of either JT9D in hand for 747, or of CF6/DC-10, or RB211 contracted 29/3/68 for L-1011). Ministers had no view on market prospects. They had a strong view that the Nation was in dire straits and had better things to do with taxpayers' hard-earned than to spend on another air speculation. They had devalued £ by 14.3%, 18/11/67, announced withdrawal from East of Suez (bar HK), 6/2/68. The Prague Spring had been 4/68, our SSBNs were real and so, soon, we hoped, would be an MRCA in firm collaboration. Concord was spending well, selling less. We would have chopped A300 if that had still been proposed. BOAC looked forward in fear and trepidation to the dire financial consequences of PanAm having bounced everybody into 747 - 6 on order simply to match PAA capacity on LHR-NY; BEAC was trying hard to deter HMG from imposing L-1011 (9 would be, 10/73).

We all forget the way we were in 1968. BEAC's last Dakota service was 19/5/62: 00s of seats on one very expensive hull frightened all. Short-haul was on revenue pools, long-haul on cartel fares, cartel Service standards, cartel-constrained frequency/capacity. No real competition outside US domestic. NOM #6 has Jane's forecasts of even captive Customers thinking of half-a-dozen in a Fleet.

We rejoined (now: ) Airbus Industrie 1/1/79: may I hi-jack OP to: "what if UK had not rejoined AI", and/or "what if UK had not jumped ship at all?"

The emergence of AI-as-today's-Force has nothing to do with skilful management, fine product selection/market forecasting. They became Last Man Standing next to Boeing because cushioned financing into the new Century protected them while all their competitors fell over, as Boeing, too twice nearly did (over 747 upfront loss, and over a Corporate Raid when the Pension Fund was parlous). Luck. So my view is that nothing profound would have changed if UK had stayed in, 4/69, or not rejoined, 1/79 (SA A320 et seq wings from ANOther). Because UK was one voice in several, and consensus was/is the only way.​

​

The idea that rolls royce had no sway with the ministry gust dosnt stand up to scrutiny.

Consdering how secretive the how prosses of creating the a300b was makes me doubt that the brienton ever agreed with the proposal.

Consdering how much money the uk would spend baling out both rolls royce and bae also really dosnt seem like the uk geverment considered aviation something not worth investing in.

Also the idea that us domestic was the only way to make money was true in the 60s, after that the airline industry became global (so gust another thing the uk government got wrong during this time period, but it's not like most others weren't caught off gard by the rise of the rest of the world in the airline industry)

I do agree airbus rise had more to do with it being the last one standing then anything else, but that dosnt mean it couldn't have crashed and burned at the stating gate.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

This is a piece of wishful thinking and not a suggestion that has any degree of plausibility.

I think that the largest armed forces that the UK could have supported from circa 1970 to the end of the Cold War are those that existed before the Mason Defence Review of 1974-5 with three CVA.01s instead of 3 Invincible class. Some of the money to do it would have come from the Top Brass, MoD and the British Defence Industry doing their jobs better. However, most of it comes from the British economy performing as well as West Germany's.

Those forces included 4 strategic transports squadrons with Belfasts, Britannias and VC.10s. The plan in the late 1960s had been to replace the Britannias with Lockheed C-5A Galaxies which would have entered service in the middle 1970s. I think the RAF wanted to replace the Belfasts and VC.10s at a later date as well. I have no evidence to support that claim. However, it looks like the logical next step. In my wishful thinking timeline enough Galaxies are purchased to equip the 4 squadrons at 8 U.E. plus provide enough backing aircraft for second-line units (like the OCU), major maintenance and attrition.

There were also 3 tanker squadrons and a tanker training flight equipped with Victor B.1/B.1A medium bombers which had been converted in the second half of the 1960s. The real world's plan was to replace them with the 29 surviving Victor B.2s but this was cut to 24 by the Mason Review and so was one of the 3 squadrons. The next step was to replace some of the converted Victor B.2s with converted second-hand VC.10 airliners. Following the Falklands War by 9 second-hand Tristars were purchased and they equipped a new squadron.

The wishful thinking here is that the RAF purchases 30 A300B tanker-transports to replace the converted Victor Mk 1s. It's in part because HMG wants to maximise its return on investment in Airbus. I also though that 2 RB.211 engines would burn less fuel and might be cheaper to maintain than 4 Conway engines.

The Mason Review also cut the number of Nimrod LRMP squadrons from the equivalent of 6 squadrons to the equivalent of 4½ so the 11 Nimrod MR.1 that became available for conversion to AEW.3s in the available in the real world aren't available here and instead are converted to MR.2s. Therefore, the MoD purchases 12 additional A300Bs. It's 12 instead of 11 because there were 12 Shackleton AEW.2s to replace. I thought they might work better than the Nimrod because it has more internal space and as far as I know one of the reasons why the Nimrod AEW failed was that it couldn't be fitted with computers that were powerful enough to do the job.

As I wrote in the first sentence of this post it's wishful thinking.

 

[Archibald]

Let me throw my two cents about this.
We tend to forget the miserable misery in which Europe airliner industry (France & GB & Europe, minus Fokker peculiar case) was by 1975.
France alone had, not one, but three (or even four !) expensive airliner failures to manage
- Concorde
- Dassault Mercure
- Aerospatiale Corvette (a bizjet, admittedly)
- Airbus A300
Yes, Airbus was going the same (dinosaur doom) way before 1977: all hail and may God bless First Man Around The Moon turned Eastern Airlines CEO: we love you, Frank Borman !)

In passing, THIS was a major earthquake that shook US airlines industry to the core.

Airline Deregulation Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So what happened ? it created a gapping hole in the airliner market. At the 260 passengers mark, medium range.
- 747 even SP, was too big with too many engines
- DC-10 and Tristar were trijets, and too big
- DC-8 -63F was the one and only option, but it was veeeeeery old with four fuel guzzling old jet engines.
- 767 was Boeing perfect answer, except it was post 1982 - tooo late, deregulation 1978: airlines can't wait.

- Airbus through lot of intelligence and some luck too, happens to have the A300 ideally suited to fill the "deregulation glaring hole". Frank Borman was a smart guy and saw it coming right from 1977. And thus he opened the Pandora Box, and introduced the wolf among the sheeps: he unlocked the US market to Airbus. And from this moment on, it was kind of unstoppable tidal wave.

Bottom line: from 1969 to 1977 (first flight happened in October 1972) the Airbus A300 wasn't a particularly attractive investment of public or private money. That's the sticky point.

I can understand why you British bailed out of it, and I say that as a frenchman ROTFL. Between GB economic hardships of the 1970's, plus Concorde commercial cataclysm, plus the A300 dubious business case before 1977... yeah, it makes some sense.

Could have became another Mercure (the horror !). Or another Concorde (the horror, the horror).
Heck, even a Caravelle or Bac 1-11 or Trident level of relative success (low hundreds number of airframes) wouldn't be enough to get a decent ROI.
There was another major issue lurking in the shadows, that Airbus had to fight hard to solve.
Boeing and MDD were tooled to churn airliners by the thousands - see the number of 707s, 727, DC-9 manufactured.
The full and entire European airliner industrial base usually churned some hundreds (less than 500, and I'm generous there) number of any airframe.
It took Airbus until the 1990's to churn their first airliner in the thousands, somewhat like sausages: that was the A320. And still is - the sheer number manufactured since 1987 is truly mind blowing.

Airbus A320 family - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Number built	10,692 as of 31 December 2022

The below link numbers was properly unthinkable in 1969, 1975, or even 1987.

Orders and deliveries

Airbus releases commercial results in a monthly “Orders & Deliveries” report, which lists all firm aircraft transactions – including executive and private jetliners.

www.airbus.com

17558 airliners (of which: 10 000 build, 7000 more in the pipeline)

Compares that to good old Caravelle: 282 airframes ! Geez, that almost sixty times more.

Airbus galactic success nowadays seems routine.
But only 40 years ago, it was far from being obvious - Airbus could have become another MDD, that is Boeing punching bag.
And 50 years ago it was even less obvious.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Questions for @Archibald.

As you mentioned Frank Borman at Eastern Airlines. Was he there when [Airbus] Eastern decided to become the other launch customer of the Boeing 757? And if he was why did he order it instead of the A310?

Up-thread I suggested that Boeing 757 might not have been launched or at least delayed if British Airways had bought A310 instead. One doesn't have to be Einstein to see the consequences if Eastern Airlines had decided to buy A310 too.

Boeing 757 was a "slow burner" too and sales did not "take off" (intended) until the second half of the 1980s. I've go the list of orders to the end of 1986 from "Modern Civil Aircraft: 6 Boeing 757/767" by Philip Birtles in front of me. According to that a total of 195 were ordered to that date.

• BA & Eastern ordered their first aircraft on 31.08.78 and respectively had 25 & 27 delivered or on order at 31.12.86.
• Delta ordered their first 757s on 12.11.80 and had 60 delivered or on order at 31.12.86.
• The only new customer in 1981 was Monarch with 6 delivered or on order at the end of 1986.
• The only new customer in 1982 was Air Europe with 3 delivered or on order at the end of 1986.
• LTS, Northwest & Singapore Airlines ordered their first aircraft in 1983 and between them had 37 aircraft delivered or on order at the end of 1986.
• There were no new customers in 1984.
• Royal Brunei, Republic & UPS placed their first orders in 1985 and between them had 29 aircraft delivered or on order at the end of 1986.
• Royal Air Maroc, Royal Nepal, El Al & Air 2000 were new customers in 1986, but at the end of 1986 their orders came to a total of 8 Boeing 757s.

However, if I recall correctly from reading Flight International at the time about 120 were sold in 1987 which increased total sales to date from 200 to 320.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Part of Post 15.

Heck, even a Caravelle or BAC 1-11 or Trident level of relative success (low hundreds number of airframes) wouldn't be enough to get a decent ROI.

I read the relevant chapters of Gardner's history of BAC as research for another thread in the autumn last year. And if I remember correctly he claimed that had it not been for the BAC.111 the Company wouldn't have survived the cancellation of TSR.2.

As you've mentioned Trident I've often though that if it had sold better Hawker Siddeley would have had the money to become a full risk-sharing partner on Airbus with a 37.5% share instead of (I think it was) 18% without financial support from HMG. If the better selling aircraft had been "Big Trident" the "hot-back-end" experience from its Medway engines might have helped Rolls Royce with RB.211 so it might not have gone bankrupt in 1971.

 

[Archibald]

Was he there when Airbus decided to become the other launch customer of the Boeing 757? And if he was why did he order it instead of the A310?

"Seattle, we have a problem..." Did you mean Eastern ? Borman A300 decision was in April 1977 (from memory).
As for ordering both Airbus and Boeing - better to have more than one iron in the fire. All airlines are doing that - it is call competition.

Eastern ordered their first aircraft on 31.08.78 and respectively had 25 & 27 delivered or on order at 31.12.86.

Dang, eight years ? That's a helluva long time to wait in the murderous post-deregulation era.
And 31.08.1978 as 18 months after the A300 order.

A300 = 767
A310 = 757
(give or take - 200-something vs 250-something passenger seats.)

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Was he there when Airbus decided to become the other launch customer of the Boeing 757? And if he was why did he order it instead of the A310?

"Seattle, we have a problem..." Did you mean Eastern ? Borman A300 decision was in April 1977 (from memory).
As for ordering both Airbus and Boeing - better to have more than one iron in the fire. All airlines are doing that - it is call competition.

Eastern ordered their first aircraft on 31.08.78 and respectively had 25 & 27 delivered or on order at 31.12.86.

Dang, eight years ? That's a helluva long time to wait in the murderous post-deregulation era.
And 31.08.1978 as 18 months after the A300 order.

A300 = 767
A310 = 757
(give or take - 200-something vs 250-something passenger seats.)

Of course I bloody did! Typo corrected! It wasn't what you wrote. It was the way you wrote it. Hence the tone of this reply.

 

[EwenS]

AIUI the effects of deregulation included, in no particular order:

1. Major airlines pulled out of serving smaller and unprofitable routes, so freeing up the aircraft capacity they already had to increase frequencies on more profitable routes.
2. There was a proliferation of new smaller commuter airlines to serve those routes. So developed hub and spoke. But those airlines required commuter aircraft not big jets. So we got Jetstream 31, Shorts 330/360, Brasilia, Saab 340 etc selling in big numbers.
3. Airlines began to sweat their existing assets to a far greater extent. So aircraft were spending much more time in the air per day earning a now reduced amount of money per passenger.
4. Airlines going bust freed up aircraft for use by survivors. Remember Braniff International Airlines which went bust in 1982?
5. Many airlines had to adapt to the new low fares environment first, before ordering new aircraft. That meant battles with unions and things.
6. The origins of the aircraft leasing business lie in the 1970s but it increased vastly in the 1980s. That made it easier for new start ups to get going.

These kind of things delay the need for more new larger aircraft in the short term.

 

[Archibald]

4. Airlines going bust freed up aircraft for use by survivors. Remember Braniff International Airlines which went bust in 1982?

And Fred Laker Skytrain, in February 1982. It collapsed so brutally, some thousands unfortunate travellers were stuck at airports, notably in London - there were almost riots !

 

[Archibald]

3. Airlines began to sweat their existing assets to a far greater extent. So aircraft were spending much more time in the air per day earning a now reduced amount of money per passenger.

I worked as a logistics clerk for a low cost airline in the 15 months before COVID nuked air transportation into oblivion.

I can still remember vividly the sheer and utter panic when one AOG happened. AOG: Aircraft On the Ground. When IT happened it was like a goddam nuclear apocalypse. And you think Threads is gloomy ? Try an AOG at a low cost airline. This is DOOMSDAY PANIC, cranked past 11.

Soooo - some kind of superior authority at an airport had disliked one peculiar safety aspect of one of the company A319, - and decided it would be temporarily grounded until correction would be applied. Because you don't mess with passenger lives, even as the worst low cost airline in Europe.

This de facto and instantly

- stranded 150 VERY angry passengers at airport somewhere in Europe (there were almost riots at time, I swear - the stewardesses on the ground were utterly baffled at times, it even made headlines in the local newspaper, imagine: ANGRY PASSENGERS STRANDED GOES RIOTING AT AIRPORT - POLICE CALLED TO HELP)

- turned the said A319 into a money black hole: some thousands euros going up in smoke with every passing hour stuck on the ground, not flying and with zero passenger. Even an average A319 needs to be in the air filled at more than 90% capacity to earn some money. Margins are miserable, particularly for low cost airlines.

And thus- AOG paniiiiiic ! It was chaos and mayhem across the entire company - stretched between Bordeaux, Las Palmas, Barcelona and countless other places (my own croatian maintenance company had its HQ somewhere in the British countryside, for fiscal evasion reasons AFAIK). I watched angry or stressed emails piling up in my inbox, being in copy even if not directly concerned with the chaos (I knew my role).

Everything grounds to a halt as the low cost airline frantically browse across airport stations (and its lean-and-mean Toyota-like just-in-time meagre spare supply), the aiport maintenance station that has the one and only spare part to repair the aircraft and make it fly again.

If that happens to be YOUR station, you logistic clerk has to IMMEEEEEDIATELY stop whatever you were doing, find and pack the goddam spare in your stock and dispatch it to the airport someplace in Europe where the A319 is stuck - burning money like a Black Hole.
And then the mechanics from Eastern europe or the Balkans (sigh - Croatia, really) rush to the airport, wherever it is in Europe, including driving 2000 km by car if necessary (!!!!) to work all night long and repair the f*cking aircraft.

Dear God, I was only a little cog into the maintenance machine (itself a contractor to the low cost airline) but it was like a mental asylum, with everybody screaming at each others by emails.

There was one guy in particular, he was the manager of every single A319 and MD95 wheel and tyre across the entire fleet and Europe.
Remember Antonio Bardem psychopath killer with the awful hairdo in "No country for old men" ? Anton Chigurgh (goddam stupid name impossible to write!) ?
Well, that bastard SOB of vicious manager was the living embodiment of Chigurgh. You knew it would be a bad day when the asshole send you vicious emails, whatever the motive. I wasn't working for his company, but my colleague was and we were doing the exact same job. I used to tell him he had Stockholm syndroma with the psycho sack of shit.
I often suggested my colleague he should graduate with a diploma in criminal psychology, to better handle the nutcase. ROTFL.

It was a wild ride, stressfull and frustrating at time - but I didn't cared, because I often had a good laugh at the utter siliness of the whole thing. Plus I like aircraft and airports, so I was like a kid on a chocolate shop on Christmas day. Even more when Trump's AF1 dropped at my airport for a G8 summit.
Sometimes just describing about my workday with my wife (or trying !), it looked like a Saturday Night Live standup comedy one man show. And ended with a good laugh. It was just absolute mayhem.

 

[alertken]

Engines do offer an AH to my (#12) "nothing profound would have changed if UK had stayed in, 4/69".
(Pay attention at the back. This is complicated).

Big Fans emerged from work at NASA/Ames, NGTE/Pyestock. In 1964 DoD went to tender for CX-HLS and BEAC Invited a Big Twin.
UK MoA gained £1.4Mn. for a Demonstrator, to which RR offered RB178 (Super Conway), BSEL BS.123 (a Super Olympus: BOl.593 turbine, BS.100 compressor). BSEL lost BS.100/P.1154, so BS.123 ratcheted risk, so RR was funded 6/65, bench test 7/66. CX-HLS was won 10/65 by LAC/C-5A, GE TF39 (PV variant CF6 to bench test 21/10/68). Losers Boeing/Pratt PV schemed to be 747/JT9D.

BEAC's Big Twin became of interest to Air France, so UK/French Govts' Study contracts by 11/65 on BAC, HSAL, AMD, Breguet, Nord, Sud, response 4/66, engine open to JT9D, BS.123, RB178: GE took no interest, being busy at risk price on TF39. FRG joined 9/66, nominating a loose assembly of their airframers and M.A.N.Turbo to be added to whichever engine France+UK might choose.

PanAm bought 25 747s, 13/4/66, declining RB178 non-firm price, for JT9D fixed price. Boeing 26/4/66 ceased offering RB178 Option.
That experience compounded Medway's 12/60 loss of 727 and would cause RR to offer RB211 fixed Unit price to L-1011. (Fixed Unit prices would bring Boeing and P&W to the brink of the abyss, 1970/71, and plunge RR into it, 2/71).

BSEL dumped BS.123 6/66 and joined JT9D (so did SNECMA, 9% owned by P&W). RR killed Euro-JT9D by buying BSEL, 7/10/66. Project Study contracts 15/10/66: HSAL+Sud (ea.37.5%)/DASA (25%), Super Galion to be A300, RB207 (RR 75%, SNECMA/M.A.N.Turbo, ea. 12.5%).

US evolved the notion of Big Triplets. RR 28/7/67 won UK Govt Launch Aid: (70% of cost to a ceiling of £49Mn. RB207 (UK content; FRG/ France sponsored M.A.N/SNECMA), £40Mn. RB211/US Triplets). DC-10/10, CF6, won 2 of US' Big 5, 19/2/68 (DC-10/20, JT9D soon for Northwest); L-1011/ RB211 won 2, 29/3/68; Delta wanted L-1011/CF6, but took RR 2/4/68. (3 engine types on 2 airframes for one market sector would ensure financial poo for all).

The A300 Team downsized, 9/12/68. RR schemed an RB211 and drip-Studied it with their RB207 £ till UK jumped ship 16/4/69. FRG/France launched A300B, 50% ea. 29/5/69 (HSAL as wing "Associate" guessed as 18%); CF6-50 selected 23/10/69*. So PoD:

Could A300B have been UK/France/FRG, RB211? Well, what is the A to this Q:
Could RR have evolved solo RB211-for-L-1011 concurrently with collaborative RB211-for-A300B?

Pratt did JT9D concurrently, 747 and DC-10/(20 became)40; GE did TF39/C-5A with CF6-DC-10/10 and A300B. Pain was present.
RR was also doing collaborative power for Concorde and MRCA.

RR went bust 4/2/71. Nationalised RR (1971) Ltd was up 22/5/71 after much anguish confused by Lockheed's own turmoil on C-5A.

As could quite credibly range from: Sure, no prob - because SNECMA+MTU-in-an-RB211 might have helped/mitigated its problems;
to FRG+France early-71 seizing this good excuse to cut their losses and dump A300B.


(* added 1815, 13/1: 20% SNECMA, 10% MTU).

 

[Archibald]

(so did SNECMA, 9% owned by P&W)

An interesting story by itself, that one. SNECMA sucked at high thrust turbojets as much as they sucked at turbofans later. Hence, when in 1959 the Force de Frappe wanted a B-58 (Mirage IVB) rather than a Vigilante size bomber (Mirage IVA), neither Atar 9 nor Super Atar could do the job, and foreign engines became mandatory. Considered were British engines (Olympus, the irony !) the Arrow Orenda PS.13 Iroquois, and Pratt J75. Last one carried the day, and to get a bit more than a simple licence SNECMA sold a bit of their shares to Pratt. Still, foreign engines on the Force de Frappe main main nuclear vector was not tolerable to De Gaulle, who pragmatically chose to move the "foreign tech dependancy" from Mirage IVB engines to Mirage IVA C-135F tanker. Even if the latter was grounded for some reason Mirage IVA could still fly and strike on Atar 9 power. Not possible with J75s ! Hence Mirage IVB got the axe after merely six months of life - spring to fall 1959.
Yet that Pratt agreement was not cancelled: just not used. Until 1963, when instead of J75s, Pratt passed SNECMA a JTF10 / TF30 licence and technology. Which was put to good use on the III-V, F2, F3, and G types. For nothing as the M53 was picked instead, circa 1970. French TF306E ended better than the F-111 and Tomcat never ending miseries that spanned the next four decades.
Even if the M53 sucked a bit.
In the end SNECMA cracked the high-temperature, efficient core turbofan issue with General Electric rather than Pratt: getting a F101 core for the CFM56. Nixon was reluctant but had to budge in the end. So CF (General Electric) married M (SNECMA) and CFM was born.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Eastern ordered their first aircraft on 31.08.78 and respectively had 25 & 27 delivered or on order at 31.12.86.

Dang, eight years ? That's a helluva long time to wait in the murderous post-deregulation era.
And 31.08.1978 as 18 months after the A300 order.

• Eastern Airlines received their first 757 on 22.12.82 and the first service was on 01.01.83.
• British Airways received their first 757 on 25.01.83 and the first service was on 09.02.83.
• The original orders on 31.08.78 were 19 (+18 options) British Airways and 21 (+24 options) Eastern with both airlines selecting RB.211-535 engines.
• If HMG make BA buys A310 instead of 757, Boeing might not be able to launch the aircraft with the 21 aircraft that Eastern wanted to buy. In which case the airline orders A310 now (i.e. August 1978) or waits until Delta comes along and orders their 60 aircraft 27 months later (November 1980).

A300 = 767
A310 = 757
(give or take - 200-something vs 250-something passenger seats.)

I don't know why you wrote that. Was it background information? Or did you think I didn't know the difference?

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Let me throw my two cents about this.
We tend to forget the miserable misery in which Europe airliner industry (France & GB & Europe, minus Fokker peculiar case) was by 1975.
France alone had, not one, but three (or even four !) expensive airliner failures to manage
- Concorde
- Dassault Mercure
- Aerospatiale Corvette (a bizjet, admittedly)
- Airbus A300
Yes, Airbus was going the same (dinosaur doom) way before 1977: all hail and may God bless First Man Around The Moon turned Eastern Airlines CEO: we love you, Frank Borman !)

In passing, THIS was a major earthquake that shook US airlines industry to the core.

Airline Deregulation Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So what happened ? it created a gapping hole in the airliner market. At the 260 passengers mark, medium range.
- 747 even SP, was too big with too many engines
- DC-10 and Tristar were trijets, and too big
- DC-8 -63F was the one and only option, but it was veeeeeery old with four fuel guzzling old jet engines.
- 767 was Boeing perfect answer, except it was post 1982 - tooo late, deregulation 1978: airlines can't wait.

- Airbus through lot of intelligence and some luck too, happens to have the A300 ideally suited to fill the "deregulation glaring hole". Frank Borman was a smart guy and saw it coming right from 1977. And thus he opened the Pandora Box, and introduced the wolf among the sheeps: he unlocked the US market to Airbus. And from this moment on, it was kind of unstoppable tidal wave.

Bottom line: from 1969 to 1977 (first flight happened in October 1972) the Airbus A300 wasn't a particularly attractive investment of public or private money. That's the sticky point.

I can understand why you British bailed out of it, and I say that as a frenchman ROTFL. Between GB economic hardships of the 1970's, plus Concorde commercial cataclysm, plus the A300 dubious business case before 1977... yeah, it makes some sense.

Could have became another Mercure (the horror !). Or another Concorde (the horror, the horror).
Heck, even a Caravelle or Bac 1-11 or Trident level of relative success (low hundreds number of airframes) wouldn't be enough to get a decent ROI.
There was another major issue lurking in the shadows, that Airbus had to fight hard to solve.
Boeing and MDD were tooled to churn airliners by the thousands - see the number of 707s, 727, DC-9 manufactured.
The full and entire European airliner industrial base usually churned some hundreds (less than 500, and I'm generous there) number of any airframe.
It took Airbus until the 1990's to churn their first airliner in the thousands, somewhat like sausages: that was the A320. And still is - the sheer number manufactured since 1987 is truly mind blowing.

Airbus A320 family - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Number built	10,692 as of 31 December 2022

The below link numbers was properly unthinkable in 1969, 1975, or even 1987.

Orders and deliveries

Airbus releases commercial results in a monthly “Orders & Deliveries” report, which lists all firm aircraft transactions – including executive and private jetliners.

www.airbus.com

17558 airliners (of which: 10 000 build, 7000 more in the pipeline)

Compares that to good old Caravelle: 282 airframes ! Geez, that almost sixty times more.

Airbus galactic success nowadays seems routine.
But only 40 years ago, it was far from being obvious - Airbus could have become another MDD, that is Boeing punching bag.
And 50 years ago it was even less obvious.

For what it's worth 15,039 Boeing jet airliners were delivered to the end of 2013.

1,010 - 707​

1,832 - 727​

3,132 - 737 Classic​

4,400 - 737 NG​

1,474 - 747​

1,050 - 757​

1,048 - 767​

1,093 - 777​

If the UK hadn't pulled out of Airbus in 1969 the numbers of 737, 757, 767 and 777 are likely to have have been somewhat to considerably smaller.

However, all of Boeing's loss may not have been Airbus's gain. Some of it may have been MD's gain. The book that I've been using as my source for 757 orders says that American nearly bought some in 1980 but decided to buy DC-9-80s instead. Therefore, some of the airlines that bought 757s in the "real world" (if Britain remaining in Airbus means that aircraft doesn't happen) may buy DC-9s instead of A310s. Eastern for example bought 96 DC-9s which were delivered between 1966 and 1977. Therefore, it's plausible that they'd have bought DC-9-80s instead of A310s if Boeing 757 wasn't available.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

McDonnell Douglas was small fry by comparison to Boeing. It only managed 3,644 jet airliners (556 DC-8, 2,442 DC-9, 446 DC-10 and 200 MD-11) which was only a quarter of Boeing's total. However, if there's no Tristar the total of DC-10s increases to as many as 690.

 

[Archibald]

(Deleted my previous post as I got Fokker F-27 numbers completely wrong)
Thank you @NOMISYRRUC for the exquisitely detailed numbers.

Category:British airliners - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fokker - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And so it seems the all-time pre-Airbus European airliner production run is with the Fokker F-27 : 586 airframes. One and only to ever bust the 500 mark.
Followed by the Vickers Viscout (445) HS-748 (380) Fokker 100 (283 !) Caravelle (282) BAC 1-11 (244) Fokker F-28 (241), Fokker 50 (213)

Bottom line: Fokker was the closest Europe had from a Douglas or Boeing, before Airbus. Shame it was left to rot and die in 1996. Bravo, The Netherlands !

A good case could be made that, as far as pre-Airbus airliners were concerned, France and Great Britain were fokked by The Netherlands (I'll get my coat, ok !)

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

A good case could be made that, as far as pre-Airbus airliners were concerned, France and Great Britain were fokked by The Netherlands (I'll get my coat, ok !)

Very punny! It reminds me of my pronunciation of Pepperl & Fuchs.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

A good case could be made that, as far as pre-Airbus airliners were concerned, France and Great Britain were fokked by The Netherlands (I'll get my coat, ok !)

Very punny! It reminds me of my pronunciation of Pepperl & Fuchs.

Which in turn reminds me of being told to stop shortening "Analyasis" to "Anal." because it sounded too much like a word with the same spelling that was pronounced differently.

 

[Hood]

And so it seems the all-time pre-Airbus European airliner production run is with the Fokker F-27 : 586 airframes. One and only to ever bust the 500 mark.
Followed by the Vickers Viscout (445) HS-748 (380) Fokker 100 (283 !) Caravelle (282) BAC 1-11 (244) Fokker F-28 (241), Fokker 50 (213)

Bottom line: Fokker was the closest Europe had from a Douglas or Boeing, before Airbus. Shame it was left to rot and die in 1996. Bravo, The Netherlands !

This is why I always say that the British industry should have calibrated itself against Europe rather than always worrying about beating the USA or penetrating the US market and then doing itself down constantly for not fostering a home Boeing or a home Lockheed to sell 1,000 Sandringham Superliners or 5,000 Jetspitcane fighters. Instead they did pretty well compared to its European competitors.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Thank you @NOMISYRRUC for the exquisitely detailed numbers.

You're welcome. I can provide a list of who bought them and how many they bought if required. However, I can't quote the source because I didn't put the link to the website I found the information on into my spreadsheet.

What I find all the more remarkable about the Firm from Seattle's success is that it only sold 56 last-generation piston-engine airliners despite selling 888 military versions of the same aircraft while it's competitors sold about 500 each of their last generation piston-engine airliners & that was off the back of considerably smaller sales to the US Armed Forces.

Yet not only did it become the dominant producer of jet airliners but it did it in style. 1,500+ over 45 years v 56 Stratocruisers. That's 250 times more! Meanwhile, one of its previously more successful competitors was able to sell a small fraction of what Boeing did and another was driven out of the civil airliner market.

(Before anyone replies... that's after making allowance for the 820 sales of the C-135 (Boeing 717) family aircraft to the USAF & France. As already noted selling 888 KC-97s to the USAF didn't result in the Sratocruiser outselling the DC-6, DC-7, Super Constellation & Starliner.)

I'm sure that there are more than a few alternative universes were that didn't happen and furthermore I'm positive that any alternative historian that suggested it would be told it was fantasy.

 

[Archibald]

It is quite fascinating to think that 800+ KC-97s were replaced by 800+ KC-135s. Boom, 1600 Boeing tankers in less than two decades (1951-1971 - and something). Imagine the time and money it would take today for Boeing to manufacture 800 KC-46s
(half joking of course !)

Anybody knows when was the last KC-135 build ? there are so many C-135 variants, only Su-27 bazillions derivatives come close as a nightmare.

And yes, Boeing truly sucked at the piston engine airliner business - and then in the jet age the tide turned with Lockheed the great loser. Only Douglas smoothly sailed into the new era - only to slowly sink to oblivion afterwards.

Stratocruiser didn't sold too well but neither did the cargo C-97 to the Air Force. Only the tanker saved Boeing there, but it did grand style. The C-97 fell victim to the C-124 domination plus the smaller cargoes - C-82, C-123...

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Anybody knows when was the last KC-135 build ? there are so many C-135 variants, only Su-27 bazillions derivatives come close as a nightmare.

The 808th USAF aircraft was delivered in February 1965. (Source: Page 30 of "An Illustrated Guide To The Modern US Air Force" by Bill Gunston.) I don't know when the 12 KC-135Fs were delivered. I think you're our resident expert on them.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

It is quite fascinating to think that 800+ KC-97s were replaced by 800+ KC-135s. Boom, 1600 Boeing tankers in less than two decades (1951-1971 - and something). Imagine the time and money it would take today for Boeing to manufacture 800 KC-46s
(half joking of course !)

Strictly speaking KC-135 replaced a few hundred KB-29s and KB-50s (which were operated alongside the KC-97s) as well.

 

[Archibald]

Anybody knows when was the last KC-135 build ? there are so many C-135 variants, only Su-27 bazillions derivatives come close as a nightmare.

The 808th USAF aircraft was delivered in February 1965. (Source: Page 30 of "An Illustrated Guide To The Modern US Air Force" by Bill Gunston.) I don't know when the 12 KC-135Fs were delivered. I think you're our resident expert on them.

LMAO. Mind you, I have no clue - so much for a resident expert, hmmm. The damn C-135FRs have been in service since Metuslah was in diappers, it is hard to remember an AdA without them.

 

[Archibald]

Seems the 12 french aircraft were delivered after the 808 americans, so 1964 or 1965 (Mirage IVA first standing nuclear alert was October 1964 in my birth place... 18 years later: Mont de Marsan.)

Also only 732 C-135s were KC-135s, seems the other 76 were something else but not tankers.

 

[starviking]

(Deleted my previous post as I got Fokker F-27 numbers completely wrong)

And so it seems the all-time pre-Airbus European airliner production run is with the Fokker F-27 : 586 airframes. One and only to ever bust the 500 mark.
Followed by the Vickers Viscout (445) HS-748 (380) Fokker 100 (283 !) Caravelle (282) BAC 1-11 (244) Fokker F-28 (241), Fokker 50 (213)

Bottom line: Fokker was the closest Europe had from a Douglas or Boeing, before Airbus. Shame it was left to rot and die in 1996. Bravo, The Netherlands !

But we have to take into account the production rate as well.

I don’t have the year-by year breakdowns available, but looking at the Viscount and Friendship -

Vickers commercial builds took place between 1953 and 1963: around 45 a year.

For Fokker, their 586 Friendships were built between 1958 and 1987 - around 20 a year.

Looking at Vickers - if they had a reasonable jet ready to go by 1957-ish, perhaps they could have maintained that momentum.

As it was, pining hopes on the Vanguard was betting on yesterday’s horse.

 

[Archibald]

Good point. Fokker was rather strong and stable, but their airframe production rates was the limit. Interesting.

 

[Hood]

I'm sure that there are more than a few alternative universes were that didn't happen and furthermore I'm positive that any alternative historian that suggested it would be told it was fantasy.

Not at all.
Had the planned Lockheed L-193 tanker actually been brought instead of more KC-135s then its possible that Lockheed might have had a ready-made jetliner competitor by 1960. Two potential pitfalls though might have been its double-decker fuselage which was going out of trend and the twin paired nacelles in the wingroots would have made engine upgrading more difficult. It might also mean no Electra and thus no P-3 Orion....

The jet generation was a great leveller. The piston giants like Douglas and Lockheed were not assured huge success, former biplane/racer builders like de Havilland could be big, SNCASE could hit it on the world stage, Boeing and even Soviet OKBs like Tupolev and Ilyushin became world famous as much for their airliners as their bombers. Wright lost its mantle as the prime provider of airliner propulsion, Rolls-Royce beat Bristol the interwar radial king, DH moved from powering sedate Tiger Moths to Comets. With such disruptive technology the scope was there to make it big if you had the right kit and the right prices - brand loyalty mattered little.


I'm surprised that you haven't included another Boeing what-if, if the 747 development costs had killed Boeing in 1969 and drove it to bankruptcy (they owed over $2billion at one point). Arguably at that point Boeing may well have been saved by US government intervention or taken over (McD buy Boeing in 1970?). Perhaps fatally killing the 747 and if so that probably kills the JT9D and robs Airbus of one of its alternative engines.
It's probably too late to save the RB207 by this date and arguably puts increased pressure on Rolls-Royce to get the RB211 sorted for Lockheed TriStar who will want to fill that market before the CF-6 powered McD DC-10 does. Equally possibly the US government or P&W succeed in salvaging the JT9D by ousting RB211 from the TriStar. That would mean no commercial use and a lot of egg on the British industry (and government's) face. Either way it makes the A300 engine choices shaky.
Assuming the UK leaves in April 1969 as historical, the collapse of Boeing and the 747 is too late to reverse that but it might mean the Heath government does some fast and furious bidding to rejoin and get the RB211 on the A300 to save something. Seeing the JT9D vanish, Airbus might just agree to fit the 211 as an alternative engine choice.
Assuming the UK never leaves, the whole Boeing/747/JT9D debacle gives Rolls-Royce some bargaining room - telling Airbus "fit the 211 or we'll sell it to Lockheed and they're 2-3 years ahead of you" (as is the DC-10).